Environment at CMU Event Archive

Carnegie Mellon University's Washington Speaker Series: The Science & Uncertainty of Engineering the Climate: The Need for a Strategic Research and Governance Plan

Thursday, May 24, 2012, The Cosmos Club; 2121 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC
Reception  6:30pm - 7:00pm, Old Dining Room, 2nd Floor
Panel Discussion:  7:00pm - 8:00pm, Crentz Dining Room, 2nd Floor

Please Register by May 22, 2012: http://www.cit.cmu.edu/wss

Moderator
Pradeep K. Khosla, Dean of Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering

Guest Speaker
David Keith
Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences; Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Harvard University

Panel
Steven Hamburg
Chief Scientist
Environmental Defense Fund

M. Granger Morgan
Professor and Head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University

Timothy M. Persons
Chief Scientist
Applied Research & Methods Group
U.S. Government Accountability Office

John Steinbruner
Director of the Center for International & Security Studies at Maryland
University of Maryland

For additional information, contact Sharon Grant, Senior Director of External Relations, at 202.271.4907 or sharongr@andrew.cmu.edu

2012 Earth Matters On Stage Festival and Symposium

May 31 - June 3, 2012, Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama

All sessions & performances will be held in the Purnell Center for the Arts, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Distinguished Lecture Series in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policy:Human Dimensions of Technology: Climate Modeling, Societal Impacts, and Environmental Justice

Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 4:30 pm, Giant Eagle Auditorium

Warren M. Washington is an internationally recognized expert on atmospheric science and climate research. He specializes in computer modeling of Earth's climate. Currently, he is a senior scientist and Chief Scientist of the DOE/UCAR Cooperative Agreement at NCAR in the the Climate Change Research Section in the center's Climate and Global Dynamics Division. Over the years, Washington has published almost 200 papers in professional journals, garnered dozens of national and international awards, and served as a science advisor to former presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.
Co-sponsored by Student Affairs and Eco-Reps

Carnegie Mellon 2012 Pittsburgh Conference Lectures

Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 7:30 p.m., Carnegie Mellon University, Mellon Institute Auditorium (2nd Floor- Enter from Bellefield Street) 

FREE Kick-off movie - "An Inconvenient Truth"
In this documentary, former vice president Al Gore discusses the scientific evidence for climate change. William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, said "He (Gore) got all the important material and got it right." The film won the 2007 Academy Awards for the Best Documentary Feature. Film critic Roger Ebert said, "... You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to."
7:30 p.m. - Free pizza 'til it's gone outside auditorium
7:55 p.m. - Brief Introduction
8:00 p.m. - Movie
For pizza, must RSVP by April 16: swainer@andrew.cmu.edu
Free and open to the public.

Pittsburgh Conference Lectures: "Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change: Some Science and Solutions"

Thursday, April 19, 2012, 4:45 p.m.,  Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Chemistry, Mellon Institute, Conference Room on the 3rd floor (Enter from Bellefield Street)

Robert Jackson, Duke University
Free and open to the public

Pittsburgh Conference Lectures: "Shale Gas and its Environmental Interactions"

Thursday, April 19, 2012, 6:00 p.m., Pittsburgh Athletic Association, 4215 Fifth Avenue, Oakland (Free parking in the PAA lot for the first 40 cars with token picked up inside)

Robert Jackson, Duke University
6:00 p.m. - Cash Bar Social
7:00 p.m. - Dinner: $20 regular, $10 student. Cash or check payable to SSP or SACP at the door.
8:00 p.m. - Lecture. Free to the public.
RSVP: swainer@andrew.cmu.edu by April 16 with dinner choice (Crab cakes or Chicken Marsala or Grilled Veggie.).

Chemists Club/Environmental Group Joint Meeting: "Green Chemistry: Sustaining A High Technology Civilization"

Tuesday, April 24, 2012, Spaghetti Warehouse (Smallman Street, Strip District, Free parking behind the restaurant)
Social Hour: 6:00 pm
Dinner: 6:40 pm
Presentation: 7:30 pm

Dr. Terrence Collins, Carnegie Mellon University
"Sustainability" is becoming a big word in chemistry today, permeating the halls of our entire enterprise-business, academic, governmental, nonprofit, informative.  Sustainability has a compass and the key to its pursuit at each time for any human group is the direction being taken, not the state that the group finds itself in. Green chemistry is the field wherein chemists help to build a sustainable future.  I will explain how critical individual technologies and the human dynamics surrounding them are to the possibility of a sustainable future. I delineate green chemistry's key challenge areas and I will present an overview of my group's contributions. I will give a historical perspective on sustainability and green chemistry, noting especially great American political leaders of the last century. This will be my 78th public lecture with this title, the first having been delivered to several hundred gifted high school students in Osaka, Japan on July 28, 1998 at a symposium on Green Earth Science. I will assert how important the famous Anastas and Warner "Twelve principles of Green Chemistry" are and I will reflect on a complementary set of three principles that I wrote in 1996 (published in 1997) explaining what green chemistry had to be about, how it was different from any prior field of chemistry and why it would have to be funded in extraordinary ways. Fifteen years later, the accuracy of the predictive scope can be judged by the audience.

Steinbrenner Institute Environmental Expo

Thursday, April 26, 2012, 4:00-6:00 pm, University Center, Rangos 2 and 3

The Steinbrenner Institute is looking for environmental research, art or design projects, performance and service projects! We welcome exhibitor applications from student and staff organizations, individual undergraduate and graduate students and faculty from all seven colleges at Carnegie Mellon. This is your chance to share your ideas and initiatives with the Carnegie Mellon campus community! Please consider applying to be an exhibitor and share with others who may be interested! Complete the application and email to Erika to exhibit!
CMU Summit on US-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Sunday, April 29, 2012 10:30am-12:00pm, Baker Hall A51 (Giant Eagle Auditorium)
The Energy and Environment Panel will discuss moving towards a sustainable energy future, the challenges and opportunities of sustainable energy availability and high efficiency energy use.
The Distinguished Lecture Series in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policy:
Human Dimensions of Technology: The Global Environment and Human History since 1900
Monday, April 30, 2012, 4:30 pm, Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall)
John McNeill was born and raised in Chicago and remains passionately devoted to the professional sports teams of the Windy City. He earned, or at any rate was awarded, a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from Duke University. Since 1985 he has cheerfully served two masters, as a faculty member of the School of Foreign Service and History Department at Georgetown. From 2003 until 2006 he held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environmental and International Affairs, until his appointment as University Professor. He teaches world history, environmental history, and international history at Georgetown; and writes books, and directs Ph.D. students, mainly in environmental history. He lives an agreeably harried existence with his triathlete wife and their four exuberant children. If he had time, he would enjoy hiking, tennis, basketball, and travel.

The Distinguished Lecture Series in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policy: Human Dimensions of Technology: Prosaic Disasters

Thursday, May 3, 2012, 4:30 pm, Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall)

Charles Perrow is a Research Scholar and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Yale University, and Visiting Professor at Stanford. The author of several books and many articles on organizations, he is primarily concerned with the impact of large organizations on society (Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism, 2001), and their catastrophic potentials (Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies 1999). His current interests are in the vulnerabilities of the country's critical infrastructures to natural, industrial, and deliberate disasters, covered in The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters. The 2007 edition is updated in a 2011 edition covering the 2008 economic meltdown, the 2010 Gulf oil spill, and the ongoing global warming.